The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

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276 THE FOOT OF TIME
smash him up, spoil his good looks. A step sounded
behind them, his darling mother. What an unhappy
life had befallen her lot! Bruce sprang away.
He dropped his young arms to his sides, clenched
his capable hands into two balls of hate. His face
became suddenly suffused with passion, and Sir
Bruce's son was dangerous at that moment.
He stepped forward, threateningly. "For two
pins I'd knock your bloody head off!" the boy let
out.
But no one appeared ready to put up the stakes
—there were no pins forthcoming to offer. Bruno,
indeed, put his head in at the door but thought
better of it, and disliking a scene, backed majestically
out again. The head of Sir Bruce remained
very much in place. Then, with a great wonder, he
let out a mighty, deep-throated roar of laughter.
It went out by the window and hit some kookaburras
squatting up there upon the dead branch
of an Australian eucalyptus gum-tree. It was an
infectious laugh, and those darlings of Aussie
melted into it. They took it up, yelling it crescendo,
with quaverings which carried to others further
off, to be copied by them. Evidently there was
great fun in the air somewhere or other. The kingfishers
laughed, till needing fresh inspiration from
their conductor they stopped and listened, as is at
times their wont, but all was now silent from the
window, so instead they busied themselves with
watching closely a new patch of recent digging in
Clare's garden.
But the laugh found no response in young
THE FOOT OF TIME 277
Bruce. Still, something in it caught him—caught
him by the throat, as it were. He turned, saw his
mother, and his face lit up. He was good to look
at like that, and Sir Bruce was alive to it—had been
alive to it from the very first instant he had first
set eyes upon him.
Clare came forward, her eyes alight.
The boy held out both arms to her; he even
took her into them, and then he bent down and
kissed her.
A bellowing roar went up from the fireplace.
"Who the hell are you, anyhow?" it enquired.
"Tell the rotter, sweetest," Bruce said, then left
them together. But Sir Bruce Arbuthnot needed
no telling—he knew. You could see that he knew.
There it was, writ plainly upon his face, transfigured
with a joy immeasurable. And the man
was good to look at then—very, very good.
"And so that is my heir," he said. That is what
has kept you young all these years. By heaven,
what a boy! It's as well for you I didn't know
before; you would not have been left in such undisputed
possession of him." Sudden passion shook
the giant. "Dear God, how I love you!" he said,
and with more reverence than force crushed Clare
to him.